Eurasia

Georgia’s influential Orthodox church called on Thursday for snap elections or immediate dialogue to end an “explosive” stalemate between the opposition and President Mikheil Saakashvili. The statement’s recognition of elections as a potential way out will give the opposition new heart after seven weeks of street protests demanding Saakashvili resign …

he prosecution of The Hague’s international war crimes tribunal will not file an appeal to the not guilty verdict in the case of former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic, who was tried for war crimes in Kosovo in the first half of 1999, Belgrade’s daily ‘Vecernje novosti’ cited a statement by …

Moldova’s parliament postponed from Thursday a final ballot to elect a president, a vote outgoing Communist President Vladimir Voronin hopes will enable him to hold on to the reins of power. Voronin, who intends to wield authority in his new job as speaker of parliament, proposed the postponement to June …

BRUSSELS, Belgium The foreign ministers of Croatia and Slovenia briefed EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn on Wednesday (May 27th) on their responses to his latest proposal for resolving their longstanding border dispute. Rehn welcomed the commitment of both countries to assist with the process, said his spokeswoman, Krisztina Nagy.

NICOSIA, Cyprus Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou said on Wednesday (May 27th) that UN forces in the country, known as UNFICYP, are still necessary despite the ongoing reunification talks between leaders of the two communities on the divided island. The forces, deployed in 1964, consist of over 900 UN staff based …

UNITED NATIONS Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin rejected on Thursday Georgian allegations that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had “blackmailed” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over his report on the situation in the Caucasus and threatened to veto the document. 

Romania supports the Greek position in the bilateral dispute between Athens and Skopje about the use of the name Macedonia, media reports said. Speaking after meeting his Greek counterpart Karolos Papoulias in Athens on May 27 2009, Basescu said: “The principle of good neighborly relations represents an obligation for all …

BUCHAREST Romania is committed to the European Union-backed Nabucco gas pipeline, but it will consider other projects if talks do not push forward, leaving a door open to a rival Russian project, a senior official said on Thursday.

A fierce row over the route that the South Stream gas pipeline will take through Serbia has erupted in the city of Nis, after Belgrade backtracked on earlier promises. Local authorities in Nis are demanding written guarantees from the government that the country’s largest southern city will not be left …

The ruling ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia has given a deadline to its bigger coalition partner to solve the burning name row with Greece and move the country’s stalled Euro Atlantic integration forward by the end of the year. “The grace period that (the Democratic Union for Integration), DUI gave …